Mark Friedman

SACRAMENTO -- They profited together from the rise of tribal gambling in California, but on Tuesday the rift between the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians and the lawyer who led them out of poverty was laid bare in a lawsuit.

According to her bio, actress Evelina Fernandez began writing plays so that she and her friends could play "something other than gang mothers, undocumented workers, hookers and suffering women kneeling before the Virgin." The fruit of that ambition is "Luminarias," a brightly likable if overextended play now at the Los Angeles Theater Center and the first production in the newly refigured Latino Theatre Company's season.

The judge in the Howard Beach racial attack case denied defense motions for a mistrial today following a report that the jury forewoman, a paralegal whose father is a Broadway producer, offered to sell her trial diary to three newspapers. Jurors continued deliberating for the 12th day in the trial of four white teen-agers charged with causing the death of a black man a year ago.

DIRECTOR Irwin Winkler recently saw a group of soldiers being applauded in an airport. "A lot of people think that's it," he said. "You return, everybody greets you, there's a party when you come back." But he knew there was much more to it. "You're left with your own bad memories," he said. And the task of finding where you fit once back home. Winkler's new drama "Home of the Brave," which opens Dec. 15, follows three soldiers struggling to readjust to life at home after tours in Iraq.

Many have long believed there is an art to dying. The ancient Egyptians were obsessed with lavish preparations for the afterlife, including ornately carved sarcophagi. Tibetans have amassed an immense collection of literature devoted to the topic. Putting a more contemporary spin on the idea is Funeria, an arts agency and exhibition organizer that recently opened its fourth biennial "Ashes to Art" at its gallery in Sonoma County.

Gov.-elect Jerry Brown, who famously slept on a mattress on the floor when he was governor the first time, has picked out an upscale loft only blocks from the Capitol as his home away from home in Sacramento. After weeks of touring downtown buildings ? including a much-ballyhooed stop at the mansion he grew up in more than a half-century ago, when his father was governor ? Brown settled on a slice of converted auto showroom with a brick facade and industrial-chic interior. Ever careful to nurture the incoming governor's franchise on frugality, Brown's campaign staff declined to say how much he would pay for the 1,450-square-foot apartment.

A teacher at the center of a dispute at a well-known charter school has launched a novel defense to save his job and that of a fired colleague: They're too good to be dismissed based on their students' standardized test scores. Biology teacher Mark Friedman has been suspended, and history teacher Sonia Del Pino has been dismissed from Animo Leadership Charter High School in Inglewood, which is operated by Green Dot Public Schools. Friedman was suspended because of allegations by one or two co-workers that he bullied colleagues, negligently supervised students and inappropriately involved them in personnel decisions, and created a "negative and hostile work environment," according to a letter sent to him this month.

A hard-kicking flyer is "the ultimate bird" in the world of cockfighting, we quickly learn in "Roosters" at Los Angeles Theatre Center. "Roosters" is something of a hard-kicking flyer itself. Playwright Milcha Sanchez-Scott kicks machismo around the stage until it hasn't a leg to stand on. Her play also flies, in the sense of ascending.

Trying to sell spring clothes is tough when cold weather still embraces half the country, and industry analysts cited the problem Wednesday in downgrading stocks of several apparel companies and cutting earnings forecasts. Wall Street responded by knocking down retail stocks in general, hitting Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. hardest with a 10.6% drop in price--even though analysts didn't change recommendations or forecasts on it.

During the first years of his life, Raul Mateos, 10, lived on a ranch in Mexico near Jalisco. There, he said, he regularly rode horses and played in the wide-open spaces. Six years ago, his family moved to El Monte, east of Los Angeles, where he lives in a crowded neighborhood near the freeway. His family has suffered from the ravages of urban crime: Last year their house was burglarized. But on Saturday, Raul relived a bit of his younger days.